Now This Is Number Ten . . . . .

. . . . And it's the end of the song - without a rhyme.

When the work on the kitchen started, I hadn't expected to reach ten without the work being finished. Today, we woke up to rain, so out came the gazebo to keep the workers dry while they're cutting, sanding and polishing outside. One skip load of rubbish has already gone from here, I can see them needing to hire another one.

The song that I've used for the titles of the saga is an adult, slightly racy, counting song (to be compared with "This Old Man," the children's counting song which featured in the film, “Inn of the Sixth Happiness“). It starts off:

"Now this is number one, and my story's just begun,
Roll me over lay me down and do it again.
Roll me over. in the clover,
Roll me over lay me down and do it again."

and goes all the way up to:

"Now this is number ten, and we're ready to start again."

We used to sing it in the pubs in my days as an under-age drinker. I wouldn't be able to do that now-a-days; Jnr gets highly miffed when, at the tender age of thirty two, he still has to produce his passport to buy alcohol - in the village shop where he has been known since he was a toddler.